Continental Who's Who

René Murata

Risk Integrity Safety Knowledge, Inc. (RISK, Inc.) is a global safety consulting company offering a full range of technical consulting, training, and staffing services in Process Safety and Risk Management.

RISK, Inc. was started by a small group of professionals that saw a need for a higher level of quality and integrity in Process Safety and Risk Management. This group, made up of engineers, process safety specialists, and others, set out to create a company of highly trained individuals that provide a full range of technical consulting, training, and staffing services for OSHA's Process Safety Management (PSM) and EPA's Risk Management Program (RMP). In her current position, René specializes in process safety and risk management; focusing on regulatory compliance in process safety and environmental compliance. René has developed and led training for process safety and environmental compliance for varying levels of corporate organizations in a variety of disciplines; providing process safety and operations guidance to onshore facilities in China, Brazil, and throughout the United States to improve quality and effectiveness of safety and environmental programs. René is constantly striving to improve her knowledge of process safety by attending courses, participating in conferences, and reading a ton of literature. She also expects her employees to do the same. Applying the knowledge from those experiences, René takes the time to understand her clients and assess their needs to better guide, educate and assist them on their journey toward improved safety. Her ultimate goal is to not only help a client improve their safety programs, but to ensure that the programs are sustainable after RISK, Inc has completed their work. René most enjoys working with people and companies who wish to improve their safety programs in order to protect themselves and their employees, not just perform the bare minimum.

Furthermore, René is always looking for ways to improve the process and is willing to challenge the status quo when something doesn’t make sense to her. She encourages her employees to do the same, “We spend a lot of time mentoring and training each other in our areas of strength. We perform quality assurance reviews on everything which allows us to challenge, question and educate each other so that we are constantly empowering each other to consistently provide the best quality work.” Also, by encouraging collaboration between employees, as opposed to competition, she feels that employees share knowledge and expertise thus ensuring growth for her and others.

Reflecting on her successes, René attributes her drive and motivation to many mentors throughout her lifetime including various professors whom have helped feed her love of knowledge. Among the key influences in her life are her father, who she says was her mentor, antagonist, protagonist, teacher and friend; her mother who taught her humility and grace; and her husband who has taught her to be patient with herself, and has always stood by her and encouraged her to pursue her goals and dreams, even when she wanted to give up. Throughout her educational career, René earned her MBA in Global Enterprise Management from Jones International University, and also holds a BA in Applied Physics as well as a BS in Applied Mathematics from Southern Oregon University. Obtaining her bachelor’s degrees was an extremely memorable moment. She had left college to raise children so it took a long time to get back to school and longer to get through to graduation. Graduating with two degrees as a back-to-school mother would be special to any woman in this situation, yet was even more memorable as she graduated with both her father and her husband. Aside from the demands of work, René enjoys traveling, spending time with her grandchildren, going to the beach, skiing, reading, baking, cooking, and wine tasting. One of her newest interests is paddle boarding, which she enjoys doing with her family. René loves teaching her grandchildren new things; and speaking four languages herself, she has taught them Portuguese, as well as how to read, ski, swim, and cook.

When asked her advice to others who are interested in working in this area she replied, “This career is about educating people on safety. It is not just about performing safety reviews. I think many people in our industry forget that. There are many components that work together to build an effective process safety program. When these are functioning properly, our rather hazardous industry can be operated safely. I and my team, often offer up ‘opportunities for improvement’ as an educational tool. We do this because we all believe in what we are doing. Each of us has been known to answer questions and spend time with these process improvements on our off hours. If you aren’t passionate about helping people be safe, then this is not the right industry for you.”

For more information, www.psmrisk.com.■